A link about more robots (some I know, some I don't know)

Here is a website that I found when I was trying to find H.E.L.P.eR on Google Images.  I came across it and wanted to share the page with my readers.  In addition, the author's blog ZERO's Oasis will be in the list of Related Websites on the side bar.  The whole blog is worth checking out, besides the robots section.
http://www.freewebs.com/zzzero/robots.htm

H.E.L.P.eR, from the cartoon Venture Brothers

Are any of you guys familiar with the cartoon on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] block, Venture Brothers?

I love this cartoon servant robot.  He is a typical servant robot with wheels for feet, a jut mandible, button/light bulb eyes, of course with an expressionless face.  That doesn't mean he lacks feelings.

I haven’t watched enough of Venture Brothers to know exactly what H.E.L.P.eR’s role is in the Venture family, except that for the cartoon he can be a source of comic relief. He is such a lovable robot character. He speaks in beeps that have different inflections and tones, I’m guessing to make words and sentences. And what’s funny is, anyone can understand what he says, even if he doesn’t speak in actual words.

This past week was the part in the previous season when Brock Samson’s [bodyguard license?] expires and he’s being sought after by this other organization. Brock had to start leaving after fixing [some other machine, I forgot] and H.E.L.P.eR didn’t want Brock to leave, so he made believe he needed to be fixed to. Brock knew that H.E.L.P.eR was fine, and when the robot saw that, he went to Brock and gave him a hug. Aww, a robot hugs! He must feel that a separation of a friend is unpleasant. Does H.E.L.P.eR have an emotion chip or what?  It seems he certainly developed attachments to the humans he works with.

Later the Venture family and Brock were in an airplane and the plane had to land, but the landing gear was damaged. H.E.L.P.eR went on his own and climbed to the bottom of the plane and acted as landing gear, and he made this prolonged beep sound that suggested he was in pain. After all, his feet/wheels were being scraped off by the friction. He didn’t have to do that, but he believed his humans would have better chance of survival if he stepped in to help, even if it cost parts of him. Awww! :3

I hope he makes more appearances in the upcoming new episodes this season. He always seems to get maimed or destroyed, and then is rebuilt as if nothing happened to him. In one other Venture Brothers episode, in a space station of a sort, Venture brothers Hank and Dean thought that there was a ghost or boogey man walking around, and they thought that it killed their father. When they found this monster covered in a white sheet, they beat him up. It turned out to be a very lost and confused H.E.L.P.eR blinded by the sheet. Dean and Hank couldn’t even hear his beeps of distress and never realized it was him. He appeared okay later in the episode. I haven’t seen it in its entirety for a long time.

So H.E.L.P.eR is one of the robots I admire because of his apparently robotic form, his selfless acts, and his hilariously awkward situations. And his beeps.

New Robot Anime Found: Casshern Sins DVDs

I was curious about this anime DVD. I’ve never heard of or read about it, but I saw it on Amazon.com months ago, though at the time there was no info about what the anime was actually about.  Then all of a sudden I get an e-mail from Amazon alerting me about new anime DVD releases, and one of them was this one called Casshern Sins: Part 1.  I am so glad I know what it’s about now.  I really, really, REALLY want both Parts 1 and 2.  Wanna know why?  You might probably know.

The main character is called a “cybernetic assassin.”

I wanted to call one of my original sci-fi characters a cyber-assassin, and I still don’t know if I want to call him a cyborg or an android.  Casshern Sins apparently beat me to it.

I’m so excited about it! I feel bad about indulging in instant gratification, but I might just go ahead and buy Part 1 already!  Part 2 will have to wait.  I told myself I will have a break from ordering from Amazon.com for two months, but part of me says “Get it now and enjoy it because later this year you may not have enough time, let alone be financially comfortable, to feel good getting this thing.

Sigh. I want to get both DVDs now, but they are expensive.  Besides, I still have Ishinomori’s Android Kikaider the Animation to finish as well as 009-1 and the eight Cyborg 009 episodes to digest. Ack, too much good stuff.  I can’t have everything, I know, but fuck it, I don’t buy every single thing I see, so I’m still very good with my self control.

Casshern reminds me so much of Mega Man X with his white armor.   :3 

Link:  http://animereviewers.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/casshern-sins-review/

Watched Android Kikaider the Animation, Episodes 5 and 6

It's been a while since I watched Android Kikaider the Animation, so I wanted to watch episodes 5 and 6.  I really loved episode 4, and so far, episodes 4 and 5 are my favorite ones. 

I recentely found out when visiting the blog Black Sun that there is a link at the bottom of the page for the website called www.generationkikaida.com/ and the picture for it had what I thought was someone dressed up like Kikaider.  So I went to that website and I learned in the archives for 2002 that Kikaida was actually a live action TV show before Shotaro Ishinomori made the anime.  I forgot, was Android Kikader a Japanese manga series also?  I need to look that up.

Ha ha, I didn't know that it was live action before, so I learned something new.  But I 'm going to stick to the anime.

I would really like to write my reflections on the episodes of that anime that I watch, but they will have to come later.  I especially want to write one for episode 4, since it brings up a lot of interesting issues that the characters Jiro and Mitsuko are individually realizing.  In this episode, titled "Mirror,"  Jiro, the android, still doesn't know what he looks like when he transforms into Kikaider.  Near the end of the episode he does get a chance to look at his own reflection, and he doesn't like what he sees.  Okay, I should save this for another separate post.

Reading Robots Unlimited, Chapters 10 through 13

Sorry, I haven’t updated Cybernetic Dreams for a few weeks. I believe in time’s opportunity cost, and when I wasn’t reviewing and typing, I was still researching. Now that I am taking a short break from the research, I can update on my latest readings on my research on robots.  I focused especially on the chapters of Robots Unlimited that talk about robot consciousness and robot ethics and rights, chapters 12 and 13 respectively.

I am pleased that there is at least some discussion on cyborganization (specifically “brain augmentation”) in Robots Unlimited, when the author David Levy talks about Professor Kevin Warwik and his “leading the world’s attempts to create a cyborg,” and I wanted to take note of what Levy says about Warwik’s ideas about the cyborg.

“He uses the verb ‘upgrade’ to emphasize the superiority of cyborgs over humans. The upgrading process enhances human capabilities by adding whatever computing power and/or memory and/or AI resides in the electronics embedded in the human body. The cyborg brain, eventually, will be part human and part machine…” (Levy 410)

I was thinking about my cyborg story when I read this because I want to better understand what it means for my cyborg protagonist to have cybernetic enhancements, to live and to fight. My second cyborg story, which I might have to work on later because of a lack of plot, will benefit from this description of the cyborg, including this definition, which I think is its primary meaning:

“a human with one or more mechanical or electronic device implanted in his or her body to enhance the human’s capability.”     (Levy 409)

I find that word “enhance” very provoking. It comes up once in each of the quotations from the book that I included here. Cybernetics not only can preserve a person’s life for medical reasons, but cybernetic implants can improve the person’s ability, whether it’s sight or speed or thinking power. It makes me think of the video game coming up later, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, in which this game’s main protagonist Raiden is a cyborg, and a bad-ass looking one at that. Wait a minute, I think I did mention this video game in an earlier post, but it’s just still fascinating to me.  Did Raiden willingly become a cyborg or was he forced into the cybernetic enhancements in order to survive?  It sure gives him some sick cool abilities!

I loved the chapters on Robot Consciousness (Chapter 12) and Robot Ethics and Robot Rights (Chapter 13). I spent the most energy and note-taking on those two chapters. And I don’t often think about the rights of robots and their treatment, in terms of social treatment and medical (maintenance) treatment. I wanted to know more, and I had to look up the bibliography for the Ethics chapter and found a website with an article called “Humanoid Robotics: Ethical Considerations,” written by David Bruemmer. It’s found at this page: http://www.inel.gov/adaptiverobotics/humanoidrobotics/ethicalconsiderations.shtml .  I read the whole article and I was in awe.

A lot of what David Levy and David Bruemmer say in their writings inspire me to write short stories about humanoid robots— androids, I prefer to say—that deal with ethical issues surrounding themselves and their clients. I know I am reading these books and articles so I can have a better understanding of the subject of robots, androids and cyborgs when I write the novels that feature them. However, in terms of material for short stories, this information is the most I’ve ever had, and there will be more. Will I ever write a short story again where the main character is human?

Sometimes I wonder if I should ever get into the robotics field. Nah, I don’t need to. But it would be nice to meet people who are in that field, if I just wasn’t so damn shy to meet these robotics professionals.

Post Delay

I will have the next post up within a few days or less.  I am putting my research on a short hold, so maybe I can catch up on posting about my progress after some time.  There was a lot of good reading the past week from David Levy's Robots Unlimited: Living in a Virtual Age.  I read chapters ten to thirteen.

I want to finish the next post offline so that I can use spell-check.

And unfortuately I couldn't have a good reading of The Coming Robot Revolution.  It was a library book and I had to return both of them.  I spent too much time on David Levy's book, so I will have to wait to borrow it again from the library later.   I won't take the book out of my list of reading, though.  It will stay there, but  it will be switched from its place in the list.